Develop Reference

AWS Cognito Accepting Any Password

I am implementing AWS with an Android application for the first time.
We would like to use Cognito to authenticate our users, and selectively provide data from DynamoDB.
I have successfully set up my user pool and can see new registrations appear in the user list. Trying to login with an email that does not exist fails.
However, Cognito always logs in with a valid email address, regardless of password input.
What is wrong with my process?
public class CognitoController extends Application {
static CognitoUserPool pool;
static String userEmail;
public void onCreate(){
super.onCreate();
pool = new CognitoUserPool(this,
"us-east-xxxx",
"xxxx",
"xxxx",
new ClientConfiguration(),
Regions.US_EAST_1);
}
}
-
private void actionAdminLogin(){
UtilityInterfaceTools.hideSoftKeyboard(AdminLoginActivity.this);
String inputEmail = ((EditText) findViewById(R.id.input_admin_email)).getText().toString();
String inputPassword = ((EditText) findViewById(R.id.input_admin_password)).getText().toString();
CognitoController.userEmail = inputEmail;
details = new AuthenticationDetails(inputEmail, inputPassword, null);
AuthenticationHandler auther = new AuthenticationHandler() {
#Override
public void onSuccess(CognitoUserSession userSession, CognitoDevice newDevice) {
Toast.makeText(AdminLoginActivity.this, "Congratulations It Works...", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
startActivity(new Intent(AdminLoginActivity.this, AdminPortalActivity.class));
finish();
}
#Override
public void getAuthenticationDetails(AuthenticationContinuation continuation, String email) {
continuation.setAuthenticationDetails(details);
continuation.continueTask();
}
#Override
public void getMFACode(MultiFactorAuthenticationContinuation continuation) {
continuation.continueTask();
}
#Override
public void authenticationChallenge(ChallengeContinuation continuation) {
continuation.continueTask();
}
#Override
public void onFailure(Exception exception) {
TextView errorMessage = findViewById(R.id.message_invalid_credentials);
errorMessage.setText(exception.toString());
errorMessage.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
}
};
CognitoController.pool.getUser(inputEmail).getSessionInBackground(auther);
}

I think your problem (which is not a problem by the way) is either:
In your pool Cognito setting, you chose your devices to be remembered.
Remembered
devices are also tracked. During user authentication, the key and secret pair assigned to a remembered device is used to authenticate the device to verify that it is the same device that the user previously used to sign in to the application. APIs to see remembered devices have been added to new releases of the Android, iOS, and JavaScript SDKs. You can also see remembered devices from the Amazon Cognito console.
The token is already cached:
Caching
The Mobile SDK for Android caches the last successfully authenticated user and the user's tokens locally on the device, in SharedPreferences. The SDK also provides methods to get the last successfully authenticated user.
Your Application Update
In fact for better user experience, you want the user to use the app, and don't need to login every time that she wants to use your app (e.g., look at mail apps, social media apps, etc.). However, you application need to handle that, you have two choices here:
Redirect to login if necessary: If the user is already logged in and wants to use the application again, your app needs to verify the user against the Cognito user pool, and only then, redirect the user to the login page if necessary.
Remove the token: If you really want the user to login every time that she uses the application, then remove the token if the user signs out; but I do not recommend this, for the sake of user experience.

How to retrieve data from Firebase database without listeners?

Right now I'm developing an android app, and I just started to work with Firebase.
My question is: How can I retrieve data from the firebase database, without use listeners ?
In my game, I'm saving the high scores of all the users, and I need to take the data from the database when user go into "leader-boards" page.
I saw some solutions, which is not good for my case.
One of them is:
mRef.addValueEventListener(new ValueEventListener() {
#Override
public void onDataChange(DataSnapshot dataSnapshot) {
String value = dataSnapshot.getValue(String.class);
}
#Override
public void onCancelled(FirebaseError firebaseError) {
}
});
This solution is not good for me, because I cant afford to my app to go into the server every time high score of user is changing, because if I would have 20,000 people who playing at the same time, then the game will stuck.
so I cant use this listener, because it will make the game very slow.
My goal is to to find a way to change the high score, without alerting the other people who is currently playing the game, I mean that I need to update every user score for his own, and when user go to the "leader boards" page, only then I will go to the server.
what is the right solution here ?
Or can I use this listener in another way?
If my question is not clear, then ask me in the comment please.
Thank you !!
my lines:
public static void setUserHighScoreToServer(Context context,boolean isClassic,int scoreNum)
{
com.firebase.client.Firebase mRef;
mRef= new com.firebase.client.Firebase("...");
String name = InternalStorage.getUserName(context);
String classic = "";
if(isClassic)classic="Classic";
else classic="Arcade";
com.firebase.client.Firebase mRefChild = mRef.child(name+classic);
mRefChild.setValue(String.valueOf(scoreNum));
}

This is the OFFICIAL way to retrieve data once without listening for data changes.
// Add all scores in ref as rows
scores.addListenerForSingleValueEvent( new ValueEventListener() {
#Override
public void onDataChange(DataSnapshot snapshot) {
for (DataSnapshot child : snapshot.getChildren()) {
...
}
}
}
more information here: https://firebase.google.com/docs/reference/android/com/google/firebase/database/DataSnapshot

If you don´t need to update on real time, you can always do a Rest api call to your database.
Just do a GET call to retrieve your data
https://[PROJECT_ID].firebaseio/[path].json
and you are good to go
You can also update or create new keys using rest api calls.

How to remove quickblox account user name from user list?

Basically I am retrieving QBUser list from quickblox server and I don't want Admin(application registered - account owner) name to be listed as QBUser.
Example :
I signup quickblox with name "A" to register "xyz" application.
Afterwards I add certain users ("B","C","D") to application "xyz".
Now when I request user list API for "xyz" application I want only ("B","C","D") in response, but the issue is user list contains all users ("A","B","C","D").

I doubt there's a query to exempt a particular user from the query but you can handle that in your code when the user list is returned.
QBPagedRequestBuilder pagedRequestBuilder = new QBPagedRequestBuilder();
pagedRequestBuilder.setPage(1);
pagedRequestBuilder.setPerPage(50);
QBUsers.getUsers(pagedRequestBuilder, new QBEntityCallback<ArrayList<QBUser>>() {
#Override
public void onSuccess(ArrayList<QBUser> users, Bundle params) {
for(QBUser user: users){
if(user.getFullName().equals("A"))
users.remove(user);
}
//go ahead to use users list without A
}
#Override
public void onError(QBResponseException errors) {
}
});
Hope it helps.

Storing user data example - display name not showing in database

A bit confused why there's no display name being displayed in my Firebase database, I've followed the steps in the example on their website and didn't get the expected result which they showed. Here's the example code.
final Firebase ref = new Firebase("https://<YOUR-FIREBASE-APP>.firebaseio.com");
ref.authWithPassword("jenny#example.com", "correcthorsebatterystaple",
new Firebase.AuthResultHandler() {
#Override
public void onAuthenticated(AuthData authData) {
// Authentication just completed successfully :)
Map<String, String> map = new HashMap<String, String>();
map.put("provider", authData.getProvider());
if(authData.getProviderData().containsKey("displayName")) {
map.put("displayName", authData.getProviderData().get("displayName").toString());
}
ref.child("users").child(authData.getUid()).setValue(map);
}
#Override
public void onAuthenticationError(FirebaseError error) {
// Something went wrong :(
}
});
Whenever I tried this example code the expected result was to be something similar to what is shown below.
{
"users": {
"6d914336-d254-4fdb-8520-68b740e047e4": {
"displayName": "alanisawesome",
"provider": "password"
},
"002a448c-30c0-4b87-a16b-f70dfebe3386": {
"displayName": "gracehop",
"provider": "password"
}
}
}
Instead of showing something similar to the above, in my database only the provider is shown and not the displayName. Is there any necessary steps required to get the displayName to show or should it be there automatically?
I tried to look into this to see what was included within authData.getProviderData() and this was what was produced in the console when I printed it out.
01-25 17:58:51.921 15651-15651/<package-name> I/System.out: {email=j.joe#hotmail.co.uk, isTemporaryPassword=false, profileImageURL=https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/de53da9874178adb1a44b392ba5bed2f?d=retro}
So from the result produced it's left me wondering if the key "displayName" was formerly automatically created from the email and stored by default in authData.getProviderData() and that's why it is no longer shown.
Would appreciate it if someone could explain where the displayName in the database comes from because judging by the expected result it seems I've missed something.
Thanks!

An email+password account does not have an associated display name. It only requires an email address and a password.
You can definitely require the user to enter additional information. Just don't pass it to createUser() and don't overwrite it after calling authWithPassword().
Update: since the update to Firebase Authentication released at Google I/O 2016, there is now a display name property for each user. So you can also keep the display name in Firebase Authentication itself (although you won't be able to query/search for it).

Saving data into Parse.com cloud for another user

I have an app which works with users, and offers the possibility to follow certain users, at the current user choice.
Unfortunately, I don't know how to modify data of a user which is not the current user. I have not seen anything like that stated in the Parse.com docs(or i missed).
I have a column in my database in "Users" class called "usersFollowed" and when the current user clicks "Follow" i want to add the current user to the "usersFollowed" list, but adding them like you will see in the following code does not work.
Follow user code:
dialog = ProgressDialog.show(context, "",
"Following...", true);
viewHolder.userFollow.setSelected(true);
viewHolder.userFollow.setText("FOLLOWING");
ParseQuery<ParseUser> userListQuery = ParseUser.getQuery();
userListQuery.whereEqualTo("screenName", parseUserList.get(position).get("screenName").toString());
userListQuery.findInBackground(new FindCallback<ParseUser>() {
#Override
public void done(List<ParseUser> parseObjects, ParseException e) {
parseUserFollowedList = new ArrayList<>();
if (parseObjects.get(0).getList("usersFollowed") == null) {
parseUserFollowedList.add(ParseUser.getCurrentUser());
parseObjects.get(0).addAll("usersFollowed", parseUserFollowedList);
} else {
parseUserFollowedList = parseObjects.get(0).getList("usersFollowed");
parseUserFollowedList.add(ParseUser.getCurrentUser());
parseObjects.get(0).addAll("usersFollowed", parseUserFollowedList);
}
parseObjects.get(0).saveInBackground(new SaveCallback() {
#Override
public void done(ParseException e) {
dialog.dismiss();
}
});
}
});
.saveInBackground does not work because it throws exception: Cannot save info for user that is not logged in".
Can anyone help me in how to do this?
Cheers!

Users may modify only their own data. But the idea of following can be implemented such that only the currentUser's record requires write access: If Jack chooses to follow Jill, then Jack writes to his "following" relation. This works as long as we don't try to represent "followedBy" in Jill's data (which can be achieved instead with a query).
Or consider that the User table represents the private relationship between a real person and your app. It might make better sense to model the idea of a user's public face with your own custom object, and model following relationships between those. I mention this idea elsewhere here and here.